[Note: I recently updated this compilation to include some more recent visualizations… you can see it here.]

Here’s a collection of terrific social media infographics that might come in handy. As you probably know, infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge. They illustrate information that would be unwieldy in text form and they act as a kind of visual shorthand, making information easy to understand and consume. They are driven by the same information as charts, but they’re often a better form of communication because of their pleasant aesthetics — charts and graphs can communicate data, but infographics turn data into information.

It’s very helpful to use infographics in presentations, reports, articles, etc., to convey concepts. Instead of poring over figures and long reports to decipher data, an infographic can immediately explain what the data actually means.

Most of these have been scaled down or cropped. Each one has been linked to the original, so please visit the links to view them full-size.

If you know of any good ones that I’ve missed, please leave a comment and let me know!